A progressive voice from the Carolinas, featuring views, news, and dialogue that the corporate media doesn't. In the Mountains of Western North Carolina, Mills River is a rural community about 20 minutes from Asheville.

Monday, February 08, 2010

Obscenity Defined

Astounding. Just fucking astounding. The following piece from Smirking Chimp is short but puts into sharp, real-world perspective the sheer lunacy of U.S. military spending. And PLEASE let's stop calling it "defense spending". There's nothing defensive about it. There is no country on earth that poses a real military threat to the United States; certainly not one suicidal enough to attempt a direct military attack. And to assert that there's something justified and reasonable about spending at this level for so-called deterrence is absurd. Every other developed country on this planet put together doesn't come close to what the U.S. is spending on military and related industries, and they seem to be getting by just fine. They also seem to be spending money on other things that actually lead to progress for its citizens - you know, little niceties like health care, education, regulating environmental toxins. Financial and banking cartel oversight. Creating jobs. Things that benefit citizens as opposed to only pet industries. But here in Amurka, that's just commie talk, right?Margolis points out that "during the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- funded by borrowing -- cost each American family more than $25,000." WHERE WERE ALL THE TEA BAGGING FAUX PATRIOTS THEN ??(Answer: They were busy applauding and loudly crowing their approval, while demonizing those of us who dared protest the lunacy as "America-haters").

U.S. President Barack Obama calls the $3.8-trillion US budget he just sent to Congress a major step in restoring America's economic health.In fact, it's another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug -- debt.More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion. The latest example was the Soviet Union, which spent itself into ruin by buying tanks.

Washington's deficit (the difference between spending and income from taxes) will reach a vertiginous $1.6 trillion US this year. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion. Debt service will cost $250 billion.

To spend $1 trillion, one would have had to start spending $1 million daily soon after Rome was founded and continue for 2,738 years until today.

Obama's total military budget is nearly $1 trillion. This includes Pentagon spending of $880 billion. Add secret black programs (about $70 billion); military aid to foreign nations like Egypt, Israel and Pakistan; 225,000 military "contractors" (mercenaries and workers); and veterans' costs. Add $75 billion (nearly four times Canada's total defence budget) for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars ($1 trillion so far), will cost $200-250 billion more this year, including hidden and indirect expenses. Obama's Afghan "surge" of 30,000 new troops will cost an additional $33 billion -- more than Germany's total defence budget.

No wonder U.S. defence stocks rose after Peace Laureate Obama's "austerity" budget. Military and intelligence spending relentlessly increase as unemployment heads over 10% and the economy bleeds red ink. America has become the Sick Man of the Western Hemisphere, an economic cripple like the defunct Ottoman Empire.

The Pentagon now accounts for half of total world military spending. Add America's rich NATO alliesand Japan, and the figure reaches 75%. China and Russia combined spend only a paltry 10% of what the U.S. spends on defence.

There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members stationed abroad, 116,000 in Europe, nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea. Military spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- funded by borrowing -- cost each American family more than $25,000. Like Bush, Obama is paying for America's wars through supplemental authorizations.

You've said it; we've all said it. If they'd reduce that damn bloated defense budget by one-half...just one-half...we'd have a chance of seeing some remarkable positive change in this country. But, it's not going to happen. There are way too many benefiting from this. The elite and powerful are making tons of money just the way it is.

Imagine this: the United States spends more on defense each single year, than what a single-payer universal health-care system would cost over the course of ten years! You've asked the all too infrequently asked question: Why isn't the teabag crowd up-in-arms about this?

I found this at Cosmic Navel Lint's blog (via Tom's site). It proves that many times humor is a better and more direct approach to dissecting and analyzing the situation. This animation is superb political satire by Mark Fiore and is featured on YouTube.

“In the councils of government we must guard against
the acquisition of power, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties and democratic processes.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower
from his final address to the nation
January 17, 1961

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
--Thomas Jefferson